Unsung Graves
It was a flaccid procession
behind your death.
No pomp, just circumstance
of grief. You wanted
such a quiet exit.
Why do I pulse
a fist and scream?
My sister gave away
your clothes;
I could not stand to look at them.
Sweaters like a sail boat's mast
removed from ships
I whistled back.
They brought
three dressers
from your home.
I looked for you
inside that wood.
Nothing in their
spotless drawers.
Still heavier than
Stonehenge blocks.
I'd pass by slick mahogany,
smell the draft
of your perfume
like flowers on the patio.
It was a flaccid procession
behind your death.
You struck too hard.
And we were weak.
I mourn you
in syllabic ponds
and grow green moss
from ways you lived.
Sifting through the winter snow,
I come across a daffodil.
Silent Sewers
Quiet is a sewer's grate.
I'm tired of the grit I see.
Truth crawls out like earwigs
from a blossom's grin.
I worry of your judgment bells
as aphid season strikes a rose.
Accordions of pestilence
have traveled through the centuries.
I am only one small voice.
A tiny squeak from violins.
In sonnets of our family life--
iambic touch: a missing scale.
Slant rhyme booze is not enough
to call up ghosts and bury them.
Why do smarts bring
silence up at cocktail parties
leaning on their leaving vice?
I diddle with deep.
Fiddle with honest, clean out
rocks in muddy knees.
Religion living underground
in tipped canoes that know the sea:
its urchins and its urgency.
I guess I'll stay in hair that calls
like lice you need a match to free.
"To read or not to read my book."
Shakespeare's dead but Im alive.
Imagine
I imagine a poem
without your eyes--
fruit flies hovering
absent melons
on breakfast trays.
Sheets are wadded
paper places only
meant for catching blood.
Sails detached
from body boats
and drifting
in a dirge of wheat.
I'd put my fist
through wicker chairs--
sleepless orbits
circling planets
of matterless time.
Hair won't stay
behind my ear
the way you always
put it there.
My pen
a rotted apple core.
Fingers licked for thirst of you--
strawberry seeds of artistry,
this jam won't make
it to the jar.
I would be hungry
but not for life.
Our second (useless)
bathroom sink
dripping toward eternity.
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